Friday Funding Roundup

By Nick Clayton

The theme which links most of this week’s funding announcements is investing in finance. That includes anything from developing payment platforms, providing finance software as a source to raising cash for VC funds. It was quiet on the consumer front.

Two startups announcing funding have a strong social element to their services, Ireland’s Trustev uses data from services such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to create a “social fingerprint” to reduce fraud and smooth the wheels of e-commerce. Israeli Getonic helps SMEs sell through social channels.

Berlin-based Mambu offers SaaS tools for microfinance organizations around the world. Meanwhile, another German company, the Rocket Internet-backed Paymill online payment service, has announced an additional $5 million investment following the $13 million it reported last month.

Continuing in Germany, Point Nine Capital, the former investment arm of the Team Europe incubator, says it has closed a $53.6 million fund. While one of the country’s media giants has joined forces with a Silicon Valley incubator to create Axel Springer Plug and Play to support European startups and give some of them a chance to pitch in California.

In Israel, Magma Venture Partners closed a $100 million fund, saying it had raised more than its target. This is perhaps a glimmer of hope in a week when it was reported that the country’s companies had attracted 25% less funding from local VC firms in 2012 compared with a year earlier.

Russian investment could also be seen as offering some grounds for optimism. Startup BimBasket picked up funding for its subscription service aimed at the parents of young children. It is, perhaps, a measure of the development of the country’s payment methods and transport infrastructure that they are now seen as adequate to support an investment in such a service. Perhaps a tiny piece of that is down to Gruzobzor which received backing for its freight and truck matching service.

Trustev offers what it call “social fingerprinting” with the aim of not just reducing fraud but also reducing the number of reviews. The Cork, Ireland-based startup’s website claims 27% of online orders require reviews and 75% of those orders are subsequently approved. This week it announced a $300,000 angel funding round from undisclosed Irish and foreign investors, reports The Next Web.

The… company uses social data from services like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to provide a layer of verification that a customer is who they say they are. Online retailers can add the service to their sites with a few lines of code. A ‘Trustev score’ is then generated for the customer, with retailers able to set a threshold for what scores can be approved, blocked or flagged for manual checking.

Getonic provides tools for small businesses to sell through social channels including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, blogs and email. The Israel-based startup has announced $1.3 million in funding made up of $200,000 pre-seed, $300,000 seed and $550,000 post-seed from thetime, Rutledge Vine Capital, private investor Mortimer Singer and other unnamed angel investors, according to TechCrunch.

In addition to mini social shops, Getonic, which was founded in 2010, offers a “viral-affiliate program” — letting businesses choose to enable incentives to encourage buyers to share their purchases to their social feeds. Buyers doing this can earn money or rewards if their friends buy the offered item — to encourage them to do more marketing on the SMB’s behalf.

On the payment side, Getonic takes payments via PayPal or credit card. “Our system collects payments on your behalf, distributes commissions to your promoters (as relevant) and delivers your income on a monthly basis,” it notes on its website. The startup also offers a white label offering that includes analytics and reporting tools for enterprise customers wanting to integrate into existing platforms.

The company claims to have about 5,000 SME customers, 15 corporate clients and around 15,000 distributors with 35,000 stores. The funding will go towards growing the business, largely through increased spending on marketing.

Mambu is a Berlin-based company providing software as a service (SaaS) to microfinance organizations around the world. It has received $2 million in Series A funding from Runa Capital and Point Nine Capital, with early investor Kizoo Technology ventures also participated in the round, according to The Next Web.

Since launching in May 2011, Mambu has enabled over 70 microfinance organizations in 20 countries to reach over 200,000 clients, processing thousands of transactions each day.

Mambu helps to serve a possible three billion people around the world who lack basic financial services like loans and savings. Its solution aims to support all microfinance operations from client and portfolio management to accounting and reporting.

Paymill, the Rocket Internet-backed online payment service and Stripe clone, announced it had raised $5 million from U.S.-based investor Blumberg Capital, according to The Next Web. That is in addition to the $13 million which we reported it had raised last month.

Point Nine Capital, formerly the investment arm of the German incubator Team Europe, says it has closed its second fund. The €40 million ($53.6 million) Point Nine Capital II is aimed at European early stage investments of upwards of €1 million, explains TechCrunch.

It’s being billed as “new”, succeeding Point Nine’s original and significantly smaller fund, although it’s already made a number of investments, including Brainly, ePetWorld, Kreditech, Positionly, and Vend. Our understanding is that this leaves over three quarters of the new II fund left for future investments…

Investors in Point Nine Capital II include institutional investors such as Horsley Bridge Partners, RTA Ventures, and SAP Ventures, along with seasoned Internet entrepreneurs Arend Lars Iven and Ron Hillman from Berlin Venture Partners, Michael Ambros and Gunther Schmidt who founded eKomi, the teams behind Cube Investments from Spain, and Xevin Investments from Poland. In addition, Point Nine Capital’s management, and (unsurprisingly) partners from Team Europe, have also invested.

The goal is to support German and European startups in media, Internet and mobile through programs that last from three to six months. Selected companies will also be offered the opportunity to complete a part of the program at the Plug and Play Tech Center in Silicon Valley. Those start-ups will be get a chance to pitch to venture capitalists at Plug and Play’s Expo days…

The plan is to support 20 startups this year in two groups and then expand it next year.

“We are are also going to use this as a platform for companies from here that want to establish a base in Europe,” [Plug and Play founder Saeed] Amidi said.

Magma, which has a portfolio including social navigation company Waze, data compression startup Onavo and automatic video editing app Magisto, says that the new Magma III fund will be used for pre-seed, seed and A-rounds funding “large-scale, meaningful companies.” Magma now has more than $300 million under management.

BimBasket is a monthly subscription service aimed at young children in Russia. It has raised $500,000 from New York-based venture fund Black Ocean, reports GoalEurope.

Modeled after American services CitrusLane and BabbaCo, this service will provide subscribing parents with a new “development kit” each month to aid them in raising their child. The packages will be tailored to the child’s age and will include materials approved by Professor Mikhail Lazarev, who is a member of the Academy of the Pedagogical and Social Sciences and leading figure in Russian medical community.

In addition to the document sharing and processes element, which Gruzobzor claims can reduce the number of empty trucks on the road, resulting in significant cost benefits, the service includes tools like distance calculators and weather forecasts.

The company claims to have over 36,000 companies and individual customers mainly in Russia and eastern Europe. Gruzobzor uses a freemium model with freight and truck postings being offered free, while there is a charge for workflow tools.

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